The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1887-04-20
WORK AND WORKERS.
Points of Interest on the Labor Hori-
zon--Among Mills, Shops and
Mines.
Increased Demand from Abroad for Amer
lean neutrality-suspicious. Industrial
Notes.

chinery for export are OF such num-
Der and character as to point to the
probability of great increase In de-
mand for our machine-shop products,
says the Philadelphia Record. Ten
or twelve cities are now working OPP
contracts for improved machines,
among which are Jersey City, Provi-
dence, Boston, Chicago, Pittsburgh,
and Rochester, n. Y. A tool company
in the latter place has just shipped an
engine to Japan and one to South
America. Hartford is 'also becoming
great machine-shop center One
company has just added two three-ton
drop hammers, making thirty-seven ID
all. Every company there Is now en-
gagged in increasing its capacity: A
machine to thread pipe sixteen inches
In diameter has just been completed at
Chicago. A Moscow, Russia, firm has
ordered l50-horse power engine from
Westinghouse, at Pittsburgh, and a
Yokohama, Japan, firm has ordered one
of 60-horse-power. while 150-horse-
engine is being made for Australia.
Eastern capitalists are cooperating
with Southern and Southwestern mer-
chants to establish cotton factories,
foundries, and mill capacity of one
kind or another. A $500, 900 cotton
factory will be erected this summer at
Shreveport, La, and dozen of the
larger Louis ana and Texas cities have
the manufacturing fever. Boston cap
italists are about purchasing $4,000
acres of land at Mammoth Springs,
Ark, to erect on it a $250,000 cotton
mill. A 100000 cotton mill at West
Point, Ga, recently burned, is to be
immed iately rebuilt; and an Augusta
mill will put in 800 additional looms to
use OF all its water-power
A Fall River Frenchman has invented
device which stops loom automati-
cally when an imperfection occurs.
The expansion of textile capacity
throughout the New England States
does not tally with some recent predic-
tiens of failing competitive power.
Much attention is being given to the
production of superb dress fabrics,
and i'll this field there are abundant
opportunities.
Some remarkably heavy orders are
being placed now for material of al
most every sort for constru ton pur-
poses. A New York company has
ordered 100 miles of eight and ten inch
pipe. The demand for piping is so
vast that Allegheny City authorities
have been oh ICED to send to Louisville
for 1000 tons of water pipe. Even
Philadelphia has been sending pipe to
Pittsburg for gas purposes.
Boot and shoe dealers III many parts
of the country are making il a point to
order goods as far as they can from
manufacturers whose goods are boy
cotted. There is an increasing per-
centage of dis contented shoemakers in
the East, where strikes exist, who Sc
cretely write to employers to say they
would like to work; but the Knights Of
Labor discipline is equal to the emer-
| gency.
The iron workers are not united rs
to the policy of strike for higher
wages or the basis to stand upon. Mill .
labor, all things considered, was never
better paid, and less discomfort pre-
walls than ever before. The rapid in
crease of new iron and steel making es-
adjustments keeps the supply of labor
slack and enables the workers to obtain
their demands SO much more easily.
The printers are finding more abund-
ant employment in the West, especially
in Job work. Commerce al printing is
increasing, partly through the needs Of
railroads. The multiplication of manu-
featuring corporations is also source
of activity. Wages have been advanced
in great many cities and towns.
Employers are here and there dis
cussing in an informal way tho merits
and dement's of dividing profits with
workmen. In the New England States
the feeling is that the construction of
workmen's houses is the better plan.
Labor organizations themselves are
giving the subject no special attention.
The Legislature of Connect cut has
just passed law restricting factory la
Dor to ten hours per day, or sixty hours
per week, for women and children.
The Maine Legislative Labor Commit
tee has reported a bill making the first
Monday of September Labor holiday.
The knights of Labor organizers are
quite busy mending fences which have
been falling down since the great rush
into the organization n year or tive
ago. The "go-outers" are not cncouf-
aged to return, and as rule they are
no good, but only intolerance to tho
order.
National trades organizations are
increasing in number. Over fifty have
been organized within two wears.
These will bring about central orga-
nization-a sort of National Central
labor Union or Federation--on diff
terent basis from anything now existing.
The Paterson dyers, l.70J in num-
Der, come out of the strike of seven
weeks minus Sl42, 500 in wages. They
compelled 10000 silk weavers, who
lost 100000, to remain idle. The
losses of the other wa9eworkcrs affect
ed run the total up to over $l,00O,O0
A plate mill is to be built at Pitts
burg 263 feet long, IS feet wide, WITH
two wings 40 feet wide. The horizo -
tai rolls will be ~ inches long and 80
inches in diameter, and will roll 3O-ton
ingots. twill be the largest mill of
it's kind in the world.
Machinery rejected twenty yeas ago
in America is in use in Germany to-
day, and yet in many textile products
Il